


Crawling Under Your Skin

by anna1795



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Lots of dialogue, M/M, There's a lot implied here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-11
Updated: 2015-06-11
Packaged: 2018-04-03 22:52:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4117668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anna1795/pseuds/anna1795
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By popular demand, a pseudo-epilogue...thing to Skin Deep. </p>
<p>Drift meets Seabreeze, and the two have a conversation about business practices and Wing. It doesn't go very well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crawling Under Your Skin

            “And so, with this expansion of my thermal pools spa and salon, I hope to improve both the physical and economic health of every mech within New Crystal City!” Seabreeze spoke calmly into the microphones and cameras at the press conference, holding the ceremonial flute of high-grade energon in his hand. Throughout the entire banquet hall, claps and cheers bounced off the walls and only sought to increase the blue and green mech’s substantial ego. The assembled entrepreneurs in their grand city who had attended, as well as all of their plus ones and individual entourages, raised their own glasses or cubes of high grade in a celebratory toast, cheering his name.

            Seabreeze felt extremely proud of himself. His businesses were prospering, his newest acquisition was going to be cleaned out of those unsightly blue crystals starting tomorrow, and there were no annoying Knight-wannabes to protest his legitimate business practices. He still had to make a living in this time, and even a single little protester could be a threat. Hadn’t that been evident back on Cybertron before the war? What else could he do but ban the jet from the premises of his business before he stirred up similar trouble? In the end, it all worked out; the Knight had discovered another cave for Seabreeze to claim (with proper legal support and a scheduled meeting with Dai Atlas, of course), and his business continued to blossom along with his considerable ego.

            The blue-green, lanky mech stepped down from his stage, waving to his many business and intimate partners, shaking hands and accepting toasts in his name, mingling with the guests and answering questions from the various news companies. If he blanked out part of his memory banks, he could envision himself back on Cybertron, pre-war, and achieve a sense of normalcy. After all, that’s what everyone wanted now: a chance to forget that the majority of their species had committed themselves to mutually assured destruction, and only those with the brightest intellects deserved to remain alive in secrecy, far away from their homeworld and unknown in a universe that hated them. Let the others squabble for the spoiled remains of Cybertron and blow themselves to pieces. In Seabreeze’s perfect world, he was the top predator and the world was his very willing prey.

            “ _Seabreeze, sir_ ,” a voice disturbed him on his private business line that he always kept open in case of emergencies. “ _A potential investor just stopped by the office and wishes to have a meeting with you about the Hot Springs Expansion project_.”

            With a polite salutation to a gaggling group of investment femmes, Seabreeze moved to a corner of the banquet hall to answer the comm. “ _Cruiser, can it be rescheduled until after the announcement banquet? I am a little busy_ ,” he pointed out snidely to his overworked secretary on the other line.

            “ _He says that he has to talk with you now, or he’ll make sure that the project doesn’t receive any funding towards the crystal removal and disposal,_ ” the stressed femme answered shakily. “ _He is waiting for you now_.”

            Sometimes, his investors and bond-owners could be real pains in the aft. “Tell him I’ll be there in just a few kliks, and take my spot at the banquet,” Seabreeze snapped, breezing past the two security mecha at his door and strode into the abandoned, opalescent elevator that led to his office on the top floor of the building. Up and up the glass elevator went, past floors of mecha working diligently to make sure that business practices, legal or otherwise, ran smoothly in their utopia.

            At the top level, Seabreeze rushed past the sliding doors and passed his secretary on her way down to take his place, giving her a quick slap on the aft to give her a little perk in her step. He didn’t care about the involuntary hiccup to her engines that the smack caused; he knew that, deep down, Speed Cruiser appreciated his attentions and would never squeal on him. Composing his expression into one of business-like determination behind a façade of welcome, he opened the door to his lush office-

            “Seabreeze, is it?” That dangerous shadow purred, blue eyes showing a fury barely held at bay by a thin veneer of control. “We have a lot to talk about, it seems.”

            Someone was sitting in his comfortable desk chair, a pedde across their knee. Their new white armor on their upper body, with its sleek, seductive grounder curves and neat edges on the helm finials, did little to disguise the battle-scarred, deep black armor of his legs. Even with the blue optics, there was no denying who this infamous stranger was.

            “What’re you doing here?” Seabreeze growled, pointing to the open door and the retreating elevator. “Get out of my office before I call the authorities!”

            “Your secretary was the one that let me in here,” Wing’s pet Decepticon pointed out, standing up languidly and moving slowly around the desk. “She’s very nice, by the way. She should get a raise.”

            “She’ll be lucky to not be fired once I’m through with her,” Seabreeze snapped at this presumptuous riff-raff. “Now, out!”

            “Not until we’re done talking.” The Decepticon stood up to his tallest height, head and shoulders over Seabreeze, and tapped the open door shut behind the two of them. A cold film of perspiration appeared on Seabreeze’s brow at the lack of a smile on the monster’s face.

            “Knight Wing seems to have let his pet off of his leash,” the business-mech sneered defiantly once the door was closed and the soundproofing engaged (because so many of his office visitors could be a little too noisy when he was driving himself to overload and making sure that they did the same after he had been sated). If he could keep up the bravado, then maybe he could bluff this brute into thinking he’d met his physical match. Most certainly the Decepticon was beaten in the intelligence department. “Then again, he was always a little too…loose with his possessions.”

            “Wing doesn’t own me, and he doesn’t know that I’m even here,” the menace retorted, grabbing Seabreeze by the carefully detailed shoulder and steering him towards his desk. “Also, I’m not a pet and I have a name. It’s Drift.”

            “Well, _monster_ ,” Seabreeze purposefully disregarded the name offered to him and spoke to this Decepticon brute for what he really was, “why have you come to see me? Is it about my recent acquisition?”

            “Sure. It shouldn’t belong to you,” Drift said stubbornly, his brow creased. “Wing found it first, and you had plenty of your own hot springs for your business, so you should give it back to him.”

            Seabreeze chuckled. Oh, this poor, pitiful, naïve fool. “I’m afraid that I can’t do that,” he responded casually, with a distinct air of nonchalance. “I’ve already had the legalities finalized with Dai Atlas, and the property’s assimilated into my business. It’s not ‘finders, keepers’ to us _honest workers_. It’s a matter of finesse and legality.”

            “And how many more shanix you can cram into your personal subspace,” Drift pointed out bluntly, narrowing his optics and letting them visibly dart around the room at Seabreeze’s collection of expensive artifacts and artisan craftsmanship.

            “Well, someone without that fine degree of _social finesse and tact_ might put it that way,” Seabreeze conceded with a nod. “The point is, we’re trying to scrape out an existence in this fair utopia of ours. The Knights follow their laws as well as those of the city, and we both benefit. Wing broke those laws and suffered fair consequences-“

            “Fair consequences shouldn’t include barring him outright from the hot springs,” Drift argued fiercely, half-rising from his own seat and bristling. “I heard your speech; you said that your business was going to benefit ‘everyone in New Crystal City.’”

            “Well, certainly I said that,” Seabreeze agreed with a jovial smile. “Those that want to use my hot springs and can pay for them are allowed to do so. Those that can’t or won’t have proven their unworthiness, then.”

            “A lot of the mecha can’t afford your prices and still be able to fuel themselves,” Drift hissed. “I saw those prices. They’re obviously meant for an elite crowd.”

            “Please,” Seabreeze implored calmly. “Try to look at this from a non-Decepticon viewpoint. I am a business-mech. I work to earn my living by investing in capital and letting the fruits of my labor spring forth to be enjoyed by those that want to invest in my work in turn. I’m investing in cleaning up these hot springs and advertising them to everyone, but if only a few are willing to pay the price for such a commodity, well…” he trailed off, aiming a disarming smile at Drift, “that’s hardly my own fault.”

            “You’re not looking out for the benefit of the city on a whole,” the bi-colored mech growled lowly. “Just those who can line your pockets and give you some benefit for yourself.”

            “I can’t afford to be a philanthropist,” Seabreeze shrugged noncommittally. “That’s for those who are meant to be picked off by social survivalists and pragmatism. I’d expect you, as a Decepticon, to understand that.”

            “You understand _nothing_!” A dark, brutish finger was pointed directly between Seabreeze’s optics. “You’re not an honest mech. You’re just as corrupt as the old government from back in the Golden Age.”

            “This _is_ the Golden Age.” Seabreeze jerked his thumb out the window animatedly. “Look down there. You will see many others like me and those who aren’t. One group will come out on top and be able to support them and theirs. The others will be so focused on trying to provide for everyone that nobody wins out and they all starve to death. Which is the more worthy approach in order to survive?” The blue-green mech paused, eyeing the taller mech suspiciously because he seemed occupied with something on one of his fancy pre-war imported wood tables. “You’re not here about good business, though.”

            “No, I’m here because you hurt Wing.” Drift sounded distracted as he flipped through page after page of the journal that Seabreeze had to think of for a moment before recognizing it. It was his personal Pleasure Ledger. The Decepticon grunt was apparently _reading_ every name that he’d ever written into those many organized blocks, along with the date. “You treated him like a cog in the machine, like a medium of exchange for something you wanted.” He paused, flicking between two pages with a fair amount of distance between them. “Like a _number_ ,” he hissed, sending chills up Seabreeze’s spinal strut.

            “S-so? I’m sure he’s shown you his antics in the berth,” the business-mech blurted out desperately, trying to draw the monster’s eyes from his diary of personal conquests. “The way that he moves and stretches himself, that can’t just be from coincidence or good building, can it?” He let out an involuntary chuckle at the dual memories of the sensuous white jet writhing beneath him while he remembered his own impressive overloads. “He’s been around enough times, what was I to him? What should he have been to me?”

            The ledger was switched off. “You took advantage of him.” Drift’s voice was oddly calm, a polar opposite of the snarl that he’d spoken with last time. “I got to talk with your secretary for a little while before she called you. Tell me, is there any one of your personal staff or business partners that you haven’t bent over that desk and fragged?”

            Well, no, but there was no way Seabreeze would admit that out loud to such a loathsome individual. His personal pleasure was his own business, after all. “Why are you blaming me? _Wing_ is the little wanton harlot that can’t settle down. I figured that it was good payback for how he treated me during that scouting mission!” he rambled in his hysteria. “’Oh, it was fun, but I’m not looking to be steady just now!’ ‘Oh, Seabreeze, make me beg!’ Honestly, just in the tone of a Syk-ed out pleasure-bot from the gutters.” he mimicked the absent Knight in a high-pitched voice that was a poor imitation of the jet’s real chime-like timbre before switching to a derisive snarl. “Our second meeting to try and negotiate those damned springs? Just as good as the first for me, if not better, and he never told a soul. He gave me what I wanted and I sent him on his merry way, the little tramp. If he couldn’t bring himself to overload, that’s his own-“

            Drift moved at the same time the door to Seabreeze’s office crumbled like aluminum foil, and a dark frame stood glaring down at the whimpering, cringing civilian, the nexus of a Great Sword blazing angrily on his back. Drift hadn’t even laid a well-deserved punch on the hateful business-mech, and he wouldn’t get his chance now that Axe was here, but there was something so satisfying about helping deliver proper, civilian-based judgment. The black triple-changer looked just as furious as Drift felt right now with the past threat to his charge.

            “I’ll look after him until the proper authorities arrive,” Axe rumbled dangerously to the fuming Drift, shadowing the shocked and defeated Seabreeze as he knelt by his desk pathetically. Axe didn’t have an ounce of mercy or understanding in his EM field. “You have that microphone?”

            “Here.” Drift tossed the small, hidden appliance into Axe’s massive hand before passing along Seabreeze’s ledger. “I’m glad everyone at that stuck-up party could hear that last part. This should be enough for them, right? Along with the other testimonies, I mean.”

            “Yeah. I don’t know how you knew, lad,” Axe murmured, patting Drift on the shoulder more amiably than his face expressed.

            “I didn’t.”

            That at least let out a bark of rough laughter from Axe. “Well, good on you. Now, get back to your little jet,” he coaxed, giving Drift a gentle shove towards the door. “I’ll talk with Dai Atlas about what to do with those hot springs after this glitch is put behind bars.”  

            “Wait.” Drift noticed that Seabreeze was making to stand up, etched a spiteful, Deadlock-esque grin on his face, and aimed a decisive kick at the guilty mech’s interface array, resulting in a satisfying crunch. “Right, now I’m out of here. Call me if he gives you anymore trouble.”

            “Good thing I turned off the microphone for that,” Axe admonished with a small smirk on his face. “Don’t get into any more trouble for yourself, you hear? Wing would have my hide if he found out that you were in on this.”

            “He’s still asleep, so he’ll just be waking up when I get back. I wasn’t violent, so I technically haven’t broken any laws or my promise to Wing. Don’t worry,” Drift pacified the larger Knight, edging out the door. “I’ll be good, knowing that this city’s a little less perfect than I thought.”  

* * *

 

            Drift slid silently back into Wing’s hab suite just as he noticed the healing jet began to rouse from a long recharge cycle, and he replaced the tingling, excited energy from his field and slid onto the berth to curl around his lover, field pulsing with warmth and love and satisfaction. The jet let out a greeting chirr and nuzzled Drift’s face softly, golden optics still hazy from a satisfying recharge. “Did you go someplace recently?” he slurred softly, tilting his helm into the hand that Drift was using to softly caress his audial flairs. “You seem a bit too awake.”

            “Just had to run out for an errand with Axe, no problems,” Drift reassured the sleepy, purring jet softly with a kiss to the yellow crystal on his forehead. “Go back to sleep, Wing. Everything will be just great in the morning.”  

            The two of them settled into a relaxing lull together in the darkened berthroom, satisfaction radiating through their fields for different reasons, but the pure and true love would always be the same.    

             

**Author's Note:**

> I hear that there's a sale on torches and pitchforks at the stand down the street. Please don't aim them at me, though. 
> 
> I know that a lot of people were not happy with the character of Seabreeze, and...well, yes, I agree. So, here you go. Have a nice helping of revenge. 
> 
> I hope to have pleased people with this follow-up. Any constructive criticisms or comments will be very much appreciated.


End file.
